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By electing urbanite Kathleen Wynne as their new leader, Ontario Liberals have done Toronto a huge favour.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty escorts Kathleen Wynne to Lt.-Gov. David Onley's suite at the Ontario Legislature on Thursday. Wynne was a big part of the McGuinty regime, but unlike her former boss, she isn’t timid, writes Star columnist Christopher Hume. Wynne is to be sworn in as Ontario's 25th premier on Feb. 11. (Frank Gunn / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Toronto-haters abound in this province, let alone the city. From the mayor on down, they are thick on the ground.

So the selection of Kathleen Wynne to be Ontario’s premier comes as welcome news for Torontonians who love where they live. In a system where the premier, not the mayor, makes the big decisions for the city, the choice of an urbanite bodes well not just for Toronto, but for the province.

Not that that will help Wynne win the real election, whenever it comes. In Ontario, being from Toronto is seen as a political liability. Indeed, since she announced she would run for the Liberal leadership, pundits have been writing her off as a city slicker, unacceptable to the rest of the province on that basis alone.

No wonder Ontario has become a have-not province. We still don’t know who we are, or what’s important. We still operate on the basis of local resentment and regional jealousies.

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If Rob Ford weren’t enough; we must also tolerate the knee-jerk lowest-common-denominator pandering of Conservative leader, Tim Hudak. Like the U.S. Republicans from whom he takes his cues, Hudak has reduced his party to a largely rural rump, irrelevant, though attentive, even in the hinterland.

Little wonder, then, that Wynne’s win is a win-win. Her predecessor Dalton McGuinty started well with his Greenbelt and Places to Grow legislation, which won awards around the world. McGuinty was also the premier who pledged that often-spent $8.4 billion to help Toronto transit make up for 30 lost years.

But after that, the craven cowardice of two gas plant cancellations and the retreat from environmental responsibility left McGuinty looking weak, not to mention hypocritical.

Wynne was a big part of the McGuinty regime, but unlike her former boss, she isn’t timid. Or if she is, she doesn’t let it show.

For the woman who would be premier, talking in clear language about her commitment to improving transit in the Greater Toronto Area marks her as one of the few politicians brave enough to speak the truth. Wynne calls transit a “huge priority” and has declared her willingness to spend “political capital” getting the required funding.

That is precisely what Toronto and Ontario politicians fear most. That’s why political leadership is so weak.

But as Wynne argues, “If people want to see new infrastructure, if they want to see the transit that we need in the GTHA (Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area) we are going to have to raise the revenue.”

On the other hand, Ford would have us believe the private sector is willing to come and do all the dirty work and spend its own money in the process.

Calgary’s much admired mayor Naheed Nenshi likes to talk about “politics in full sentences.” That’s a novel idea around here, but one that might be making its way east in the person of Kathleen Wynne.

With Toronto politics having been ceded to a grunter, it’s reassuring to know that there’s a grown-up in the province who cares enough to want to run it. By electing Ford, Toronto revealed its fully infantilized civic self. Not only do we want to have our cake and eat it too, we want to do so without paying. By electing Wynne, the provincial Liberals opted for adulthood. It remains to be seen how the kids will respond.

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